<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

"Even the Queen" is Connie Willis's 1992 short story about a society where women have achieved total equality with men. Legislation based on "Personal Sovereignty,"--basically, the idea that an individual's personal freedom is limitless as long as nobody else is injured by their actions--is the underpinning of this brave new world. The catalyst for the change is a drug which allows women to stop menstruating without sacrificing their fertility; demands by women for access to this drug, known as ammenerol, are what unified the feminist movement and allowed a change in the political landscape.

The protagonist of "Even the Queen" is Traci, a judge whose twenty-two-year-old daughter Perdita has decided to join a group of Cyclists--women who choose to have their periods. Traci's mother, mother-in-law and her other daughter are up in arms about this decision . . . and they all expect Traci to somehow talk Perdita out of it. Eventually a family luncheon is convened, but Perdita doesn't show--she sends her Cyclist mentor instead. The reluctant Traci, along with both mothers, her daughter Viola, her granddaughter and even her law clerk, are left to reminisce about the bad old days before amennerol. As lunch progresses and the one-liners fly across the table, the Cyclist becomes infuriated, the law-clerk and Viola discover a mutual attraction, and--most surprising--Traci and her mother-in-law find themselves in agreement.

Willis wrote "Even the Queen" as a tongue-in-cheek response to criticisms that her work does not address women's issues. For that reason--and the story's lampooning of certain types of politically correct activism--the story has been widely controversial, particularly among feminist science fiction readers.

Controversy aside, the story won the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Short Story in 1993. Additionally, it won the same year's Locus Poll for Best Short Story and the Asimov's Readers' Poll. Willis won the 1993 Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novel with Doomsday Book, the first time any author has managed to win both awards twice in the same year.