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Khatru Symposium: Women in Science Fiction
Originally published and edited by Jeffrey D. Smith in 1975, Khatru 3&4's symposium on women in science fiction was a detailed conversation among some of the most well-known authors of 70s feminist science fiction, including Suzy McKee Charnas, Samuel R. Delany, Vonda N. McIntyre, Joanna Russ, James Tiptree Jr. (before her true identity of Alice B. Sheldon was known), Kate Wilhelm, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and others, The opinions expressed by participants are still radical today. This 1993 update of the symposium includes new material by some of the original participants and commentary by others, including Pat Murphy, Karen Joy Fowler, Gwyneth Jones, and Jeanne Gomoll. Cover by Judith M Weiss, illustrations by Georgie Schnobrich.
144 pages, Paperback
First published August 31, 2009
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January 17, 2026
L O V E D this. It's not perfect, it's messy as fuck, but to me it's a historical document about what I consider to be the Golden Age of SF. The Golden Age is a retroactive construct, ofc, and I am not attached to the name, but some of my favorite works and authors were radical as fuck in the 70s and I loved reading them correspond with each other, misunderstand each other, doing a process of connection, solidarity, learning, community, by exploring ideas and their own experiences.
This edition has some really touching 1993 bits with the writers commenting on their younger selves, having FEELINGS about their emotional reactions at the time - afraid of manifesting anger, taking up space, being defensive. You have a lot of writers who have grown, through this zine / symposium, but also through their further experiences (*cough cough* JKR could never).
There's a wide spectrum here politically, with James Tiptree Jr. being utterly confused about what tf "he" is writing about (but Tip was 60 at the time and lived her/ their/ his life in a profoundly lost and conflicted way), to Ursula LeGuin being extremely moderate and privileged in her takes, super white liberal feminist (we know she gets much more radical in a few decades), even if she calls herself an anarchist, to people like my wife Joanna Russ (note, I still don't believe in marriage, but I would have married that woman), Samuel R Delany, who are much more radical, and Kate Wilhelm whom Joanna calls the most radical and in fact is the first one to mention capitalism as the final boss.
These women are talking about things we're still talking about today?! Like Russ talks about how men are denied emotional expression and anger is the one emotion they're allowed to express. It feels like things haven't changed that much, which feels fucking sad?! Kate Wilhelm actually foresees the rise of girlboss / neoliberal feminism as she says she is afraid that women will gain equality in the workplace and the public sphere but remain as caged as men are as well - by the system. There is so much here!
It's been a year leading up to this, honestly. I read Delany's original contribution in The Jewel-Hinged Jaw back in January. His essay is titled "Letter to the Symposium on "Women in Science Fiction" Under the Control, For Some Deeply Suspect Reason, of one Jeff Smith", haha.
Then, back in the summer I read James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, which gives SO MUCH context to both Tip the character and the 'real person' (as much as we can see of her), but also on Russ and Ursula 'Star Bear' LeGuin and their relationships with Tip. It's so poignant to get another piece of the puzzle we will never fully see. Then I read and loved The Female Man (and decided Russ should have been my wife!) and Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, and I've loved all of these so much, that finishing Khatru in December feels like such a fitting cap to my year of obsessing about 70s feminist literature (in a parallel world Marge Piercy also participates and somehow everything is even better).
That's why one of the goals of 2025 for me is to read more from Russ (I've read so much from Ursula this year as well), Delany, but also Suzy McKee Charnas (who wrote a book called The Furies, about female rage, and that upset me, since I've been working for 7 years on a book which has The Furies in the title and is about female rage, oops), Kate Wilhelm and other participants, but also some of the winners and nominees of the Tiptree award and the Ursula LeGuin award.
Very excited to talk about this in two hours, at book club!
This edition has some really touching 1993 bits with the writers commenting on their younger selves, having FEELINGS about their emotional reactions at the time - afraid of manifesting anger, taking up space, being defensive. You have a lot of writers who have grown, through this zine / symposium, but also through their further experiences (*cough cough* JKR could never).
There's a wide spectrum here politically, with James Tiptree Jr. being utterly confused about what tf "he" is writing about (but Tip was 60 at the time and lived her/ their/ his life in a profoundly lost and conflicted way), to Ursula LeGuin being extremely moderate and privileged in her takes, super white liberal feminist (we know she gets much more radical in a few decades), even if she calls herself an anarchist, to people like my wife Joanna Russ (note, I still don't believe in marriage, but I would have married that woman), Samuel R Delany, who are much more radical, and Kate Wilhelm whom Joanna calls the most radical and in fact is the first one to mention capitalism as the final boss.
These women are talking about things we're still talking about today?! Like Russ talks about how men are denied emotional expression and anger is the one emotion they're allowed to express. It feels like things haven't changed that much, which feels fucking sad?! Kate Wilhelm actually foresees the rise of girlboss / neoliberal feminism as she says she is afraid that women will gain equality in the workplace and the public sphere but remain as caged as men are as well - by the system. There is so much here!
It's been a year leading up to this, honestly. I read Delany's original contribution in The Jewel-Hinged Jaw back in January. His essay is titled "Letter to the Symposium on "Women in Science Fiction" Under the Control, For Some Deeply Suspect Reason, of one Jeff Smith", haha.
Then, back in the summer I read James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, which gives SO MUCH context to both Tip the character and the 'real person' (as much as we can see of her), but also on Russ and Ursula 'Star Bear' LeGuin and their relationships with Tip. It's so poignant to get another piece of the puzzle we will never fully see. Then I read and loved The Female Man (and decided Russ should have been my wife!) and Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, and I've loved all of these so much, that finishing Khatru in December feels like such a fitting cap to my year of obsessing about 70s feminist literature (in a parallel world Marge Piercy also participates and somehow everything is even better).
That's why one of the goals of 2025 for me is to read more from Russ (I've read so much from Ursula this year as well), Delany, but also Suzy McKee Charnas (who wrote a book called The Furies, about female rage, and that upset me, since I've been working for 7 years on a book which has The Furies in the title and is about female rage, oops), Kate Wilhelm and other participants, but also some of the winners and nominees of the Tiptree award and the Ursula LeGuin award.
Very excited to talk about this in two hours, at book club!
December 13, 2025
An exchange of letters like this is a good path into an earlier era (second wave feminism of the 1970s in this case). Instead of reading one author and trying to pick apart their idioscryncacy from the mainstream belief, you get to see many sides, and responses, and arguments… despite talk of the uncomfortable oddity that the final editing was done by the least qualified person, a male fan, the collection covers a wide ground. The later ‘90s commentary makes it even richer.
I don’t want to add another oddity by trying to sum it all up in my own individual viewpoint. (The real fun was writing marginalia along the way, engaging my brain into it to get me thinking.) There are excellent essays in here (my favourite is Joanna Russ’s on p 96), and there are essays that even their authors don’t agree with in the commentary from the ‘90s. Authors interact productively, unproductively, and ambiguously—a whole other gendered layer on top of the main subject matter, and then discussions of that layer, and sidebars on those discussions...
One thing I love about this volume is how brave people are to say their piece: for reasons of social media or constant fact-checking or whatever else, people my generation and younger seem much more likely to let doubt keep them silent. There is a lot of doubt and self-censorship among the women writers in Khatru, but they still put forward bold ideas. I’d rather have more of those even if many of them fall flat.
I wish I understood more of the references to feminist science fiction. So much of the bird’s-eye view is familiar to me, but few of the specifics. I identified deeply with these writers’ experiences of so-called Golden Age sci-fi, and of world literature: painful salvage projects through misogynist (queerphobic, racist, …) canons, refusing to let them be only for the enemy. But the contemporary genre fiction I was exposed to in the ‘90s and ‘00s mostly gave anodyne and simplistic messages on gender: celebrate your girlhood or womanhood, you can do anything, no deeper politics or intersectionality to them. All literature was complicated in my queer child experience, and seeing myself in *any* character was very rare after age 9 or so; but those seemed particularly toothless. I’ll be reading some of these Khatru writers’ feminist sci fi soon, and thinking about how they might have influenced the kids.
I’m grateful for the chance to get feminist and queer theorist about all these topics. Politics are not easy for me (or anyone?) to engage with these days, and I definitely felt grief, rage, and despair reading this symposium. But Jane Hawkins in the later commentary calls feminism a path, not a game to win, and it is easier for me to deal with these emotions when I am walking that path actively by engaging with works like this, thinking, and doing. Today I continue to plan a mini “symposium” in my living room, run by working-class women, and I hope it connects people and energizes them.
I don’t want to add another oddity by trying to sum it all up in my own individual viewpoint. (The real fun was writing marginalia along the way, engaging my brain into it to get me thinking.) There are excellent essays in here (my favourite is Joanna Russ’s on p 96), and there are essays that even their authors don’t agree with in the commentary from the ‘90s. Authors interact productively, unproductively, and ambiguously—a whole other gendered layer on top of the main subject matter, and then discussions of that layer, and sidebars on those discussions...
One thing I love about this volume is how brave people are to say their piece: for reasons of social media or constant fact-checking or whatever else, people my generation and younger seem much more likely to let doubt keep them silent. There is a lot of doubt and self-censorship among the women writers in Khatru, but they still put forward bold ideas. I’d rather have more of those even if many of them fall flat.
I wish I understood more of the references to feminist science fiction. So much of the bird’s-eye view is familiar to me, but few of the specifics. I identified deeply with these writers’ experiences of so-called Golden Age sci-fi, and of world literature: painful salvage projects through misogynist (queerphobic, racist, …) canons, refusing to let them be only for the enemy. But the contemporary genre fiction I was exposed to in the ‘90s and ‘00s mostly gave anodyne and simplistic messages on gender: celebrate your girlhood or womanhood, you can do anything, no deeper politics or intersectionality to them. All literature was complicated in my queer child experience, and seeing myself in *any* character was very rare after age 9 or so; but those seemed particularly toothless. I’ll be reading some of these Khatru writers’ feminist sci fi soon, and thinking about how they might have influenced the kids.
I’m grateful for the chance to get feminist and queer theorist about all these topics. Politics are not easy for me (or anyone?) to engage with these days, and I definitely felt grief, rage, and despair reading this symposium. But Jane Hawkins in the later commentary calls feminism a path, not a game to win, and it is easier for me to deal with these emotions when I am walking that path actively by engaging with works like this, thinking, and doing. Today I continue to plan a mini “symposium” in my living room, run by working-class women, and I hope it connects people and energizes them.
December 10, 2024
“I find my temper tried severely several times a week. Often I do nothing. And it is very, very hard to remain quiet, polite (but firm) when you feel keenly that you have been talking to the same gramophone for twenty years.”
This symposium is a mess. The original letters have been lost and, apparently, were sent around in quite a mess at the time as well. But I love it. The topic is a huge mess of threads to unravel, so the messy format suits it.
I’m going to have to read this again with more of an eye to the themes I see in it, but letting this first read of it wash over me was a cathartic experience—and also a bit painful because of how relatable the problems of 50 years ago still are today. Some of the threads that struck me most: no space for “competent but uninspired” women writers, only brilliant ones; the burden of compassion so often placed on women; women’s anger and how often violence came up in discussion; motherhood and what it means (oh, Tip!); a desire to trace back how we behave to biological determinism or some sort of psychoanalysis.
I love these women. I feel a kinship with them through these letters. One thing that seems to have changed between then and now that gives me some comfort is that I have had to struggle less to find kinship among other women, both those who have come before me through the words they left behind and those who, alongside me, in the here and now, are also angry—and loving and powerful and gentle and beastly and beautiful and all the myriad things women are that we so often are told we cannot be.
This symposium is a mess. The original letters have been lost and, apparently, were sent around in quite a mess at the time as well. But I love it. The topic is a huge mess of threads to unravel, so the messy format suits it.
I’m going to have to read this again with more of an eye to the themes I see in it, but letting this first read of it wash over me was a cathartic experience—and also a bit painful because of how relatable the problems of 50 years ago still are today. Some of the threads that struck me most: no space for “competent but uninspired” women writers, only brilliant ones; the burden of compassion so often placed on women; women’s anger and how often violence came up in discussion; motherhood and what it means (oh, Tip!); a desire to trace back how we behave to biological determinism or some sort of psychoanalysis.
I love these women. I feel a kinship with them through these letters. One thing that seems to have changed between then and now that gives me some comfort is that I have had to struggle less to find kinship among other women, both those who have come before me through the words they left behind and those who, alongside me, in the here and now, are also angry—and loving and powerful and gentle and beastly and beautiful and all the myriad things women are that we so often are told we cannot be.
December 6, 2024
A fascinating time capsule that I was grateful to peek into - with some truly weird choices in editing (at the time) and curation (this edition). But it is a group of messy people having messy conversations about messy topics so it‘s probably in the best form that is possible - a form that is ever in process (and which the reader can also engage in with many, many margin notes). Loved especially the essays by Russ and Charnas!
Edit - also Le Guin‘s 1992 reflections and Gwenyth Jones‘ response comments in 1993 were particularly poignant for me. I think I will re read this often!
Edit - also Le Guin‘s 1992 reflections and Gwenyth Jones‘ response comments in 1993 were particularly poignant for me. I think I will re read this often!
June 19, 2019
Okay, it's a fanzine. It's also as long as many books I've read, and denser than many, so I'm counting it.
In 1974, sf fan Jeff Smith approached a star-studded collection of women involved in written SF (Suzy McKee Charnas; Virginia Kidd; Ursula K. Le Guin; Vonda N. McIntyre; Raylyn Moore; Joanna Russ; Luisa White; Kate Wilhelm; and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro) to participate in a written symposium - basically, an exchange of letters - on the subject of "Women in SF." He also invited two men, Samuel R. Delany and (ironically) James Tiptree, Jr., whom nobody at the time knew was really Alice Sheldon. He published the result, edited somewhat, as combined issues 3 & 4 of his fanzine _Khatru_ (named, presumably, for the YES song "Siberian Khatru").
The result was an eye-opener, and an instant legend in the SF world. Copies were precious until it was reprinted in 1993, with additional comments by several of the original participants, plus several additional women. Then in 2009, it was reprinted again (with no additional material) by the JamesTiptree Jr. Literary Award Council, presumably to keep Tiptree's substantive contributions before the SF public. That is the edition I have here; it is quite nicely printed, with a solid binding and good quality paper.
Yes: I've been avoiding discussing the contents. It's brutally hard to discuss, especially as a man in Trump's 2019 America, when some of the gains women have made over the past 50 years are being eroded by, yes, men. But it's also hard to discuss because it is such a scattershot of topics.
If I learned one thing from this symposium- one thing I should have learned years ago - it is to SHUT UP AND LISTEN. (Freud complained that he did not know what "woman" wants; apparently it never occurred to ask "her.") It is not for the privileged to "give" the oppressed their rights as if they were some sort of gift, but to listen to what the oppressed want and need, and not to stop them from getting it; to help them where this will be useful, and stay out of the way otherwise.
Also: it is not the job of the oppressed to educate the privileged. That's just adding another log to the load already on their backs.
I also learned a great deal about something I already knew: that oppression (patriarchy, racism, ageism, ableism, etc.) is less a question of what I think or feel than the system of which I am, willingly or not, a privileged part. "Giving up my privilege" not only won't help the oppressed (women, non-whites, people even older than me, the "handicapped", etc.): it isn't possible short of a radical change in the nature of the social fabric. What can I do to change that fabric? A good question, given that anything I do is done from and necessarily reinforces a position of privilege. Again: Listen. Help where useful (and that is _not_ for me to judge!). Stay out of the way.
Oh, I guess there is some value to "being supportive," but it don't scale the fish. (Again: listen. Ask if support is wanted.)
Finally: This symposium (despite the presence of Delany, Smith, and the ephemeral Tiptree), and feminism in general, belongs to women. I can (and really should) learn from it, but it is in no way mine. (This is not "giving women their space." It is declining to lay claim to it.)
It is available - I don't know how many copies - on Amazon. Get it. Read it. Educate yourself.
In 1974, sf fan Jeff Smith approached a star-studded collection of women involved in written SF (Suzy McKee Charnas; Virginia Kidd; Ursula K. Le Guin; Vonda N. McIntyre; Raylyn Moore; Joanna Russ; Luisa White; Kate Wilhelm; and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro) to participate in a written symposium - basically, an exchange of letters - on the subject of "Women in SF." He also invited two men, Samuel R. Delany and (ironically) James Tiptree, Jr., whom nobody at the time knew was really Alice Sheldon. He published the result, edited somewhat, as combined issues 3 & 4 of his fanzine _Khatru_ (named, presumably, for the YES song "Siberian Khatru").
The result was an eye-opener, and an instant legend in the SF world. Copies were precious until it was reprinted in 1993, with additional comments by several of the original participants, plus several additional women. Then in 2009, it was reprinted again (with no additional material) by the JamesTiptree Jr. Literary Award Council, presumably to keep Tiptree's substantive contributions before the SF public. That is the edition I have here; it is quite nicely printed, with a solid binding and good quality paper.
Yes: I've been avoiding discussing the contents. It's brutally hard to discuss, especially as a man in Trump's 2019 America, when some of the gains women have made over the past 50 years are being eroded by, yes, men. But it's also hard to discuss because it is such a scattershot of topics.
If I learned one thing from this symposium- one thing I should have learned years ago - it is to SHUT UP AND LISTEN. (Freud complained that he did not know what "woman" wants; apparently it never occurred to ask "her.") It is not for the privileged to "give" the oppressed their rights as if they were some sort of gift, but to listen to what the oppressed want and need, and not to stop them from getting it; to help them where this will be useful, and stay out of the way otherwise.
Also: it is not the job of the oppressed to educate the privileged. That's just adding another log to the load already on their backs.
I also learned a great deal about something I already knew: that oppression (patriarchy, racism, ageism, ableism, etc.) is less a question of what I think or feel than the system of which I am, willingly or not, a privileged part. "Giving up my privilege" not only won't help the oppressed (women, non-whites, people even older than me, the "handicapped", etc.): it isn't possible short of a radical change in the nature of the social fabric. What can I do to change that fabric? A good question, given that anything I do is done from and necessarily reinforces a position of privilege. Again: Listen. Help where useful (and that is _not_ for me to judge!). Stay out of the way.
Oh, I guess there is some value to "being supportive," but it don't scale the fish. (Again: listen. Ask if support is wanted.)
Finally: This symposium (despite the presence of Delany, Smith, and the ephemeral Tiptree), and feminism in general, belongs to women. I can (and really should) learn from it, but it is in no way mine. (This is not "giving women their space." It is declining to lay claim to it.)
It is available - I don't know how many copies - on Amazon. Get it. Read it. Educate yourself.
Currently reading
October 25, 2021I recently found an older copy of the symposium, the one without the follow-up interviews and commentary, and OH BOY! Did the sparks fly!
I will pick up this newer one soon, but from what I read in the original:
-No one knows that James Tiptree Jr. is actually a woman and her statements on mothers and mothering are really frustrating some of the other writers; and she also really hates the yin and yang/dualism between men and women
-Ursula K. Le Guin has some strange obsession with Jungian psychology; but I admire her sentiment on telling anyone (man or woman) who complains about her not writing women characters to piss off
-Joanna Russ really hated Le Guin's The Dispossessed
-All these White women really enjoy viciously criticizing Samuel R. Delany, a gay Black man.
I will pick up this newer one soon, but from what I read in the original:
-No one knows that James Tiptree Jr. is actually a woman and her statements on mothers and mothering are really frustrating some of the other writers; and she also really hates the yin and yang/dualism between men and women
-Ursula K. Le Guin has some strange obsession with Jungian psychology; but I admire her sentiment on telling anyone (man or woman) who complains about her not writing women characters to piss off
-Joanna Russ really hated Le Guin's The Dispossessed
-All these White women really enjoy viciously criticizing Samuel R. Delany, a gay Black man.
April 25, 2021
I have to give this five stars because even though it's messy and (because of the nature of the thing) necesssarily frustrating, it's an important document that is unlike anything else.
In 1974 a science fiction fan started a letters-based Symposium on Women in Science Fiction, at a time when the second wave women's movement in the US was at its height and science fiction was becoming a tool for feminist authors to imagine possible futures. He wrote to some of the biggest names in feminist sf and almost immediately insulted everybody. Yet somehow it went on for seven months. This is the edited result of that, with added commentary from its reprinting in 1993.
Apparently the original letters are lost, which is heartbreaking. It would be more interesting to see how these conversations play out in full and in chronological order. The way it's laid out, by topic, means that you can read somebody's reaction to something BEFORE you read that something, or things are referenced that were edited out of someone else's letter so you have no idea what the reference means. This version includes internal references to page numbers that I assume were from the first layout (for example, someone says they disagree with what Suzy McKee Charnas says on page 51, but Charnas isn't included on page 51). This happens a few times.
However, none of that really matters (just included for the sake of those who can't abide such confusion). This is a group of people attempting to be honest with themselves and others and miscommunicating and misunderstanding and trying to set it straight and often failing. The inclusion of James Tiptree, Jr., pen name of Alice Sheldon who kept her real identity hidden, creates some fascinating cognitive dissonance in readers who know who that person really is who's making everyone mad at the seeming old man.
My sentences are getting convoluted just trying to talk about it. If you are interested in feminism or sf or feminist sf or people trying to talk about important issues, I recommend this (if you can stand the layout).
In 1974 a science fiction fan started a letters-based Symposium on Women in Science Fiction, at a time when the second wave women's movement in the US was at its height and science fiction was becoming a tool for feminist authors to imagine possible futures. He wrote to some of the biggest names in feminist sf and almost immediately insulted everybody. Yet somehow it went on for seven months. This is the edited result of that, with added commentary from its reprinting in 1993.
Apparently the original letters are lost, which is heartbreaking. It would be more interesting to see how these conversations play out in full and in chronological order. The way it's laid out, by topic, means that you can read somebody's reaction to something BEFORE you read that something, or things are referenced that were edited out of someone else's letter so you have no idea what the reference means. This version includes internal references to page numbers that I assume were from the first layout (for example, someone says they disagree with what Suzy McKee Charnas says on page 51, but Charnas isn't included on page 51). This happens a few times.
However, none of that really matters (just included for the sake of those who can't abide such confusion). This is a group of people attempting to be honest with themselves and others and miscommunicating and misunderstanding and trying to set it straight and often failing. The inclusion of James Tiptree, Jr., pen name of Alice Sheldon who kept her real identity hidden, creates some fascinating cognitive dissonance in readers who know who that person really is who's making everyone mad at the seeming old man.
My sentences are getting convoluted just trying to talk about it. If you are interested in feminism or sf or feminist sf or people trying to talk about important issues, I recommend this (if you can stand the layout).
December 8, 2024
I am really unable to write anything intelligent about this collection of letters and opinions written by female and male science fiction authors in the 1970s. I am only sorry to think that not that much progress has been made in the last 50 years, indeed my impression is that there were many more people willing to “fight” than there are now. Still, I look forward to discussing it virtually with my friends in the science fiction group.
Non sono davvero in grado di scrivere niente di intelligente su questa raccolta di lettere ed opinioni scritta da autrici ed autori di fantascienza negli anni '70. Mi dispiace solo pensare che non sono stati fatti poi tanti passi in avanti negli ultimi 50 anni, anzi la mia impressione é che ci fossero molte piú persone disposte a "combattere" di quante ce ne siano ora. Non vedo comunque l'ora di discuterne virtualmente con i miei amici del gruppo della fantascienza.
Non sono davvero in grado di scrivere niente di intelligente su questa raccolta di lettere ed opinioni scritta da autrici ed autori di fantascienza negli anni '70. Mi dispiace solo pensare che non sono stati fatti poi tanti passi in avanti negli ultimi 50 anni, anzi la mia impressione é che ci fossero molte piú persone disposte a "combattere" di quante ce ne siano ora. Non vedo comunque l'ora di discuterne virtualmente con i miei amici del gruppo della fantascienza.
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