Female Agency in Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

This project will examine the YA Speculative Fiction novel Iron Widow under a post-

modernist feminist lens. The story follows a young woman named Zetian living in an oppressive

society who is labeled an Iron Widow, someone who sacrifices boys to power up their robot

fighting machines, after an incident. I will discuss how Zhao sets up the story within a

postmodern world to highlight how patriarchal gender roles affect young women. With this

project, I will look at how female agency manifests itself within power institutions. This project

will bring in Roberta S. Trites’ theory of power and how it is created within the works of young

adult literatureThis project will also look at scholars’ thoughts on the postmodern definition of

power such as Foucault, who argues for its inherent existence within society and how the setting

in Iron Widow adheres to those definitions. More specifically, I will be demonstrating how

Zhao’s work exemplifies how female empowerment is created under strict social institutions

with the character Zetian. I will argue that oftentimes when a novel features an oppressive

government, a figure of empowerment arises to represent the general population and that person

is usually a young female. This pattern is prevalent within the world of YA speculative fiction,

so I would like to examine the reasoning behind it.