Julia Agnes Schneider

In my contribution I explore how dystopian representations of female bodies reflect a societal metamorphosis that has taken place according to the sociologist Stig A. Nohrstedt, i.e., the shift from risk to threat society. Nohrstedt argues that the ‘global war on terror’ and environmental concerns have caused the risk society according to Ulrich Beck to transform into a threat society, which is characterized by the fear of the ‘others.’ In order to trace how this shift is represented in dystopias, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale will be compared with Amy Ewing’s The Lone City-series with the help of Iris Marion Young’s Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory. In this way, I will demonstrate how dystopias can offer counter-narratives to fears concerning female bodies and hence present a way out of the constraints of risk and threat societies.