While SF has been largely a male genre, ‘cli-fi’ is a female-driven phenomenon

Yes, there has been a recent sci-fi and cli-fi shift.

While ‘sci-fi’ has been largely a male enterprise, the risng new genre of ‘cli-fi’ is a female-driven phenomenon.

The cli-fi literary movement is full of women writers, bloggers, literary critics and readers running the show!

Look around you.

It’s plain to see.

It’s in the air!

A recent headline over a news article by Carly Nairn in a major literary magazine read: ”13 Female Cli-Fi Writers Who Are Inspiring a Better Future.” The subheadline was even better: ”In the emerging genre of climate fiction, women take the helm.”

More and more female writers are bringing climate change to everyone’s minds and eyeballs through world-building, apocalyptic scenarios. Some of their novels are dystopian and despairing, while some of them are utopian and hopeful.

Men are also involved in the cli-fi movement, but they are outnumbered by women writers and literary critics. With climate fiction, dubbed ”cli-fi,”  and our current anxiety-induced state makes this the perfect time for an artful examination of the future of the environment and women around the world are at the center of this. Men are engaged, too, but they are not at the center of things.

Female cli-fi writers and literary critics are  questioning, critiquing, and speculating about what various kinds of worlds, including the one in which we presently live, can look like. They seem to care more than men now. Women in the cli-fi movement veer toward environmental justice as a central theme, and like to set up scenarios where humanity ultimately claims stewardship of the natural world

So yes, sci fi has been a largely male enterprise, but it’s being replaced now by this new genre of cli-fi as a female- driven phenomenon, with women writers, bloggers, literary critics and readers running the show. I, for one, applaud this development, and I’m watching it grow. The 2020s will see more of this as time goes on and more women join the tribe.

Look around you. It’s plain to see. It’s in the air!